RPLog:Jedi Sim Duel
An odd hush comes to the rec room as Talia Andorn, one of two ace A-Wing pilots currently in Condor Squadron, and Jedi Master Badiri Nzuri, one of the Jedi heroes of Toprawa, converge near the simulators. One of the TIE Fighter sims (left for some of the wiseacres who like to gank their fellow pilots) has been configured with the controls and abilities of an Eta-II Actis starfighter, while the simulator immediately next to it is an A-Wing sim, using the basic controls of a standard A-Wing. In other words, sims of the fighters the two normally fly. Of course, there are a number of the New Republic Military here; this event has been planned for some time now. The silence, of course, only lasts long enough for one of Talia's squadmates to shout, "500 credits on Talia!" The room explodes into a fury of betting, for which Talia only shakes her head, knowingly. Walking into the room, an eyebrow arches upwards and Ti'Ilandria crosses her arms over her chest. "You obviously haven't seen Master Nzuri fire a weapon," notes the woman as she turns to a member of Condor. "I'm not taking that bet. It would be too easy to take your money," she drawls with a wave of her hand after having gotten the lay of the land and figured out what is going on. Shifting to the side, it is clear that the TechGirl is on the Jedi Master's side for this little simulated dogfight. She moves over to the large cat of a Jedi and smiles to whisper with a wink, before stepping back. After that is done, she flashes Talia a broad smile. "Sides, Talia keeps winning at swoop races and everything else," she offers sticking out her tongue playfully at the woman. "She needs to give other people a chance!" Not far from the two sim-pods, Sha'dria works the controls on a console that handles the interaction between the two, as well as the inputs and responses from both. She's not dressed like a technician, with her leather pants and synthsilk blouse, but she handles the controls like an expert. She's a technician, all right, just a very style-conscious one. "Okay... you're set up for head-to-head, with an asteroid filed and some capship debris to make things interesting," she calls to the two participants, looking at each sim-pod in turn. "Want me to add wingmen? Same ships?" Quiet, rumbling laughter echoes from inside Badiri's simulator pod as the Mashi leans within to inspect the controls. They are more or less the same as his Actis, at least close enough to not throw him off any. The Jedi Master had spent enough time around Republic pilots and their Sierra Hotel attitudes to have expected the betting to commence; his only surprise is that it took so long. As Badiri straightens to find Ti'ilandria nearby, he turns one ear to her whispering and raises a brow. "Thank you," he resonates with a smile, "I'll keep that in mind." Badiri turns astride of his sim pod and slides into it, turning to Sha'dria briefly, "With or without on the wingmen, but don't forget to add in the module I gave you for R6, okay?" After waiting for her response, the Mashi touches the toggle to lower the simulator's canopy. Some folks may have some high expectations of him, he fears. After all, he /is/ a Horansi, and they're not well known for being very good with anything technological. As Talia slides into 'her' simulated A-Wing cockpit, she simply laughs a little bit as she hears the continuing betting. "No wingmen; I'm afraid we do not have any AI set up for the Actis-as-pilot, and the AI usually sucks the taint from a diseased Ranat's butt anyway." She looks to 'her' controls, noting nothing really different from her normal fighter's controls, and she goes through her preflight/prefight checks, as she lowers the canopy on her simulator. Of course, she whispers, "I think a lot of me flightmates are goina be torqued off at me..." After all, she might make 'good' look like 'weaksauce', but she does not have the advantage of the Force, nor does she have the better maneuverability of the Actis. "It's plugged in and working fine," Sha reassures Badiri. "All systems green and hot. May the better being win." She grins at Talia. "No wingmen. Pity. I could have you a program for Actis AI set up inside of a day. But you're the boss." She toggles the system over to active mode. "Okay, it'll start as soon as you both push the REady button!" As Badiri settles into the molded shock seat of his pod, thankful that it's built for generic bodies and not necessarily human ones, he begins drawing on the Force. Piloting isn't his best attribute, but there are ways to increase those things that one isn't best at. Touching his tongue to his upper lip briefly, he brings up his preferred displays and slips his communications boom and earpiece into place, "Comm check. Tomcat checking in. Fighter designation Black Knight." He'd never bothered renaming the ship after his unexpected promotion, suspecting he probably never will. Black Master just doesn't have the same ring to it. Reaching out, he lightly taps the Ready switch and prepares for the fight. As she hears the 'All Green' signal, Talia hits the big red button that is where the ion engine ignition would be on an A-Wing. She smiles, and the varied displays on her A-Wing go green, her eyes taking a quick peek to make sure everything really is ready to go. Nothing like personal verification, that is. Everything really is green, and she nods, kicking it into high gear. "Comm check. Onyx checking in; fighter designation Valkyrie." She pops the earplugs she has to use whenever she's in a starfighter, her sensative hearing making them a nessecity. "Two engines green; four thrusters green; ready to turn and burn." Raxis arrives from the Rec Center. Raxis has arrived. The first thing Badiri checks once the lights go down is his relative positioning with the opposing fighter. There's still a little distance between them. "Alright, Beehive," he talks to his droid, "let's use our advantages. Bring us up to full speed and let's show that A-Wing what a fast ship looks like." He touches another switch and reports, "Locking S-Foils." Outside view screens for those watching show the Black Knight's unique strike foils opening outward as the Mashi gives his fighter an experimental spin to get the feel of the controls. "Hey, Sha'dria, nice job putting together the simulation package. You got her just right." Badiri watches the clicks tick by as he keeps his Actis out at the edge of the asteroid field, where the giant rocks are relatively few and far between -- he'll have to slow down once he gets in there. Talia, on the other hand, doesn't talk after her sensors, which actually are superior to those of the Actis, allow her to pick out Badiri's fighter, and she smiles grimly. She only goes half speed, letting Badiri come to her as she maneuvers into the asteroid field, using the asteroids as cover for her fighter. Looking about, she then checks the sensor displays again, burning about a few of the asteroids. She checks a few of the larger asteroids, and grins wickedly. Sha giggles. "Thanks, Badiri. I try." She reaches down and makes a couple of adjustments on the console. "Okay, the sim models are fully active. Mind your throttles... you /can/ burn out engines, just like the real thing, and damage control's just like real life too. Good luck!" She stoops to check the wiring, having heard some odd noises inside the console. A few male spectators divide their attention between the screens and the Twi'lek's form. As Black Knight speeds around the edge of the field, Badiri is indeed fortunate that Talia isn't at too far a range, or he'd be blind to her. As it is, however, she's close enough to make up for it. Reaching a good insertion vector, the Mashi cuts back on his engines, pushes the Actis onto its right side, then pulls back on the stick to enter the field. Without the benefit of shields, there's a /lot/ out here that can end his mission very quickly. It will definitely be a good learning experience no matter what happens. "Beehive, don't let her sneak up on us," he instructs. The droid replies with a chattery series of whistles the Mashi doesn't bother translating. Instead, he uses the moments for much the same purpose as the other pilot, getting a lay of the field and determining where he'll be able to best benefit. The smaller asteroids move faster and are more dangerous, but that's not where Talia's headed. Banking his ship to port, he heads her direction and keeps his eyes open while thumbing away the safety cover on his weapons control. "Here we go," he murmurs, buzzing around the asteroid on a vector to shortly close the two ships and bring them into view of one another. As she looks about, she notes a couple of positions she could take to do what she's planning, and she snaprolls out of her straight course, heading towards the Actis, still not going at full speed. She then dives into a field of the smaller asteroids, grinning as she does so. She then rotates her lasers as far down as she can make them go, 60 degrees declination. She then waits, to see if Badiri will follow her in, or if he'll go around. Meanwhile, her targetting computer is working overtime, trying to ensure that she's aiming at a worthwhile target, and she shakes her head, turning the targetting safeties off, while maneuvering to ensure she does not collide with any of the asteroids about her... Sha shuts the control cabinet and glances back at the nearest spectators suspiciously. It wouldn't be the first time she'd had phony techie noises made at her to make her bend down. "Watch those 'roids, you two! The collision mechanics are on and fully active." "And there she goes." To Badiri, talking to himself while piloting is a form of coaching himself through a situation that is extremely abnormal. Horansi are a tribal species. They live on plains and in jungles and have wars over water. They fight with knives and weapons made of stone, bone, and wood. They move at the speed of legs, not the speed of light. And something like fighter piloting would be absolutely unheard of! It's taken years for Badiri to become as good at it as he is, and he doesn't suspect he'll ever be much better at it. It's only the Force and a good ship that make him competitive at this level. The smaller asteroids, however, are where Badiri expects his Actis to shine with its outstanding maneuvering. Juking the tiny fighter into them, the Mashi lines up his first shot and squeezes on the trigger. The advice he'd gotten on the A-Wing's abilities notwithstanding, he lets his targeting system try to focus on the tiny ship first before a stuttering volley of red leaves the Black Knight's immensely long cannons. As her ship takes a hit, Talia sighs, glad that it was only the sensor jammer that took the hit. If it were her laser cannons that were hit, she'd be up a creek without a paddle. She aims downward, grinning as she does so. She opens fire, not on Badiri's Actis... but some of the small asteroids around him, trying to destroy them, creating a denser field of shrapnel and carnage for Badiri to attempt to fly through at the moment. It's a dirty trick, but one that has been used for years. "Oh, not nice!" As Badiri quickly intuits what Talia is pulling, he shoves his stick forward and sends the nimble Actis into a wicked, spinning dive. His paw performs a complex maneuver on the stick, pushing it right into the spin, then hauling back on it again to make the bottom of a parabola and bring the Black Knight's nose up again. "You know, Onyx, you shouldn't give other pilots ideas while you're still flying head to head with them!" His tail tip twitching between his ankles, Badiri targets the small asteroids surrounding the shieldless A-Wing with the intent of getting Talia a dose of her own medicine before she can get those shields back up. As she sees the asteroids exploding about her, Talia climbs reflexively, then accelerates into a downward look, her plan now coming to fruition as the smaller asteroid field has become more of a danger to both pilots, and thus, less of a good place to be. Her eyes quickly pick up Badiri's Actis, and she flies by eye, lining her laser cannons back up towards the fighter, and turning the targetting back to ship tracking. Laughing a little bit, she depresses the trigger, trying to turn Badiri's Actis into an exploding cloud of debris first-hand. "Beehive, we need a new strategy," Badiri grunts tightly as he flies. Reaching into the Force, the Mashi draws a breath to calm himself. This time, he pushes his tiny craft away from the cloud of rocky debris and seems to pull away from the battle, briefly opting not to attack in return as he flies with uncanny precision. He reaches for a sense of the other pilot and the battlefield around them, sinking deeper into the energy of life throughout the galaxy. Things become dulled around him, and Talia's mind and intentions become mentally highlighted for Badiri as he flexes his ebony fingers around the control stick. ... or not. As she flies a little closer, Talia's grin widens, and her hands reflexively twitch on the triggers of her laser cannon, her line of sight tightly focused on where his Actis is. Her obsidian features narrow, her eyes closing down to little slits as she fires, rolling with Badiri as he goes, trying to figure out the best way to end his digital ride... The Force is with Badiri as he smoothly dodges Talia's incoming shots... but it might be with him a little too much, if such a thing is possible. Trying to focus on too many things at once briefly becomes overwhelming for the Jedi Master, and a sudden headache blossoms, causing him to wince and nearly breaking his concentration. Indeed, an pained hiss escapes his muzzle as he tries to get things back under control. Still not attacking, he heads for the cover of the larger asteroids and momentarily lets go of his enhanced piloting while turning his attention to making the headache fade. Cheers and boos intermingle as the two fliers dive and jink, trading shots and maneuvering desperately away from asteroids and each other's fire. Sha gives a whoop of excitement and bounces on her toes with her fists at head level. "Wowsers! What a show! Don't burn up the simulator, you two!" As Badiri continues to bob and weave, Talia tries to take it to him, closing up on him further by using the gravitational pull from one of the larger asteroids to slingshot herself just that little bit closer. Opening fire once more, those delicate obsidian-hued fingers are tight around the trigger, trying to pick him off before he can do anything else. Things begin moving really, really fast now. Badiri is successfully able to make his headache go away, and immediately he reaches into the Force while still on the defensive. His ship shakes around him, and R6-B5 whistles with alarm as the main cannons fail. Badiri doesn't even have to give the command; the droid immediately goes to work fixing them when the Mashi's thumb reflexively switches the weapons over to ion cannons. The best he can do now, until those cannons are fixed, is disable Talia's ship completely. Hope she's not in front of an asteroid when /that/ happens! Panting lightly, Badiri flies instinctively and calls upon the Force to help him again, once more bringing back that enhancement of his piloting attribute. Unfortunately for Talia, she doesn't have a droid in her ship. She only has a determination to show this Jedi Master up, and she's getting a little twitchy on the trigger, firing, if not wildly, at least a little more profusely than she was before. She continues to try to aim ahead of the Actis, trying to put her last little bit of success into something a bit more destructive... Sha cringes at the nearness of that miss, her hands going to her mouth to keep back a dismayed yelp. After all, she knows Badiri. The other pilot seems friendly enough, but doesn't have her past ties. Talia's shots come really, really close this time. Badiri's hide is saved only narrowly, but now he senses it's time to go back on the attack. Away from the smaller asteroids and with more room now to maneuver, the Mashi throttles forward to put distance between him and his pursuer. The gravitational compensator pushes him against his fighter sim's shock couch as the virtual ship wheels around and performs a tightly banking spin. The Mashi is only barely aware of his actions at all as he squeezes the trigger. A different pair of cannons opens fire, lighting up the space in blue luminescence directed straight down Talia's nose. As the ion fire comes in, Talia takes an odd tact... She simply spirals 90 degrees, letting the ion shots pass around her and around her ship, one ventral, one dorsal. Shaking her head, Talia prepares to fire again, her cannons angling towards the point she expects Badiri to be in, in a few seconds, apparently hoping that's where his Actis passes through... As more shots pelt Badiri's ship, the scolding he gets from his astromech draws hoots of laughter from the audience that's watching. The droid's got a bit of a mouth on it, it turns out, not to mention a wryness to match Obi-Wan Kenobi. Either way, Badiri only barely seems to hear. "Keep your attention on those guns, Beehive," Badiri instructs, "we don't need full speed anyway." Never mind that he's GETTING SHOT -- that's what has the droid peeved. The Mashi is working to keep his ship intact at this point, but things could be much, much worse. Bdairi loops the fighter around an asteroid and performs a figure-eight around a second one, bringing him in line to open fire again on the A-Wing as it comes into sight. Now, Talia goes into an Immelman Dive as she tries to evade Badiri's fire, and manages to do so rather easily. She seems to be trying to give the droid rather more to nag at Badiri about, though, as she aims for his fighter again as soon as she comes out of the dive, noting that he's lost a little speed in the process. Her trigger finger pulls in again, and she hopes to score the finisher now, perhaps a bit more in the groove than she was before... Badiri evidently has no intention whatsoever of Talia finishing him off. Once he's fired at her, the Mashi follows through like a golf swing and keeps right on moving. The A-Wing's shots don't even come close. The Actis, however, ends up maneuvering wickedly through a trio of asteroids and is soon right back on top of Talia's ship. Space is lit up once again with azure light as Black Knight's ion cannons open fire. As she continues to fly about, Talia manages to avoid yet another burst of ion fire from Badiri, nodding, but noting the opposing pilot's wildly varying skill. At times, he flies like a rookie pilot. At other times, he flies like Kreig, and it's at those times he's got the best chance of winning. Not this time, though, and as she dives under an ion barrage, she makes a Flying Scissors to get back into firing position... Once again, Badiri's piloting and abilities with the Force are more than enough to keep him out of range of Talia's attacks. If only fortune would change to make his shooting better! The Mashi's maneuvering quickly brings Talia back into his targeting reticle, and blue lances stutter from the Actis's ion cannons. She continues to duck and weave, trying to draw another bead on Badiri as he flies by. Continuing on, she finally speaks as she weaves out of the way of the oncoming ion cannon shots... "Ye ken, we could keep this up all day... Or we could tick off everyone who put a bet on this..." says she, just as she fires again... Whether by their physical proximity in the two pods or because his Combat Sense is helping him anticipate Talia's maneuvers, Badiri evidently perceives the gist of her words. He is too tightly controlled right now to laugh, but mirth blossoms silently in the Force as he dodges her shots and works into a position to fire his own. He's lost track by now of how long they've been at this. "Arsix, how far off are those cannons?" he asks as he squeezes the ion controls. "POODOO!" says Talia as her controls suddenly go sluggish, even as she aims for Badiri's fighter again. She already has him in her sights, and she fires, hoping for the best, but knowing she likely will not do too much even so... She sighs, trigger depressed as she tries to roll away with her damaged fighter... Unfortunately for both Talia and Badiri, though, the alarm buzzer goes off in both simulators just after Talia fires, cutting the match short. They had been going for a whopping full hour in the sim, and both have been clipped and damaged. Even so, both fighters are still capable of fighting... The computer connected to both simulators takes its time, and then pops out a result, since both fighters are still able to go for hours more... DRAW. This, of course, makes a lot of the betting crowd distinctly unhappy, as most of them were betting on one or the other to win, and as the result comes out, the one lucky sod to think that the result might come out that way starts laughing... Category:Logs